Minimize garbage collection in HL7 manipulation

ABSTRACT

Disclosed are a system and method for processing HL7 messages. A method includes receiving, an HL7 message; storing the HL7 message in a memory; creating a data structure representation of the stored HL7 message in the memory that stores a start index and an end index of the stored HL7 message, wherein the start index indicates a beginning of the stored HL7 message and the end index indicates an end of the stored HL7 message; hierarchically creating, from the data structure representation of the stored HL7 message, one or more data structure representations in the memory that store at least one start index and at least one end index corresponding to one or more fragments in the stored HL7 message; and, modifying the stored HL7 message according to the at least one start index and a corresponding end index of the fragments in the HL7 message.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No.62/314,043, filed on Mar. 28, 2016, which is hereby incorporated byreference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

Health Level-7 or HL7 refers to international standards for transfer ofdata between software applications used by various healthcare providers.These different providers may operate disparate computer systems toprocess, share, and organize the different data. It is desirable thatthese computer systems interface with each other allowing transfer ofdata between the different computing systems. HL7 is a standard thatenables such communication between the computer systems. In healthcaredata processing, having computing devices that efficiently work with HL7messages is extremely valuable.

SUMMARY

One embodiment of the disclosure provides a method for processing HL7messages, comprising: receiving, over an electronic data network, an HL7message and storing the HL7 message in a memory as a stored HL7 message;creating a data structure representation of the stored HL7 message inthe memory that stores a start index of the stored HL7 message and anend index of the stored HL7 message, wherein the start index of thestored HL7 message indicates a beginning of the stored HL7 message andthe end index of the stored HL7 message indicates an end of the storedHL7 message; hierarchically creating, from the data structurerepresentation of the stored HL7 message, one or more data structurerepresentations in the memory that store at least one start index and atleast one end index corresponding to one or more fragments in the storedHL7 message; and, modifying the stored HL7 message according to the atleast one start index and a corresponding end index of the fragments inthe HL7 message.

Another embodiment of the disclosure provides a computing device forprocessing HL7 messages. The computing device comprises a processor anda memory with instructions stored thereon, such that when the processorexecutes the instructions, the device is configured to: receive, over anelectronic data network, an HL7 message and store the HL7 message in thememory as a stored HL7 message; hierarchically create one or more datastructure representations in the memory that store at least a startindex and an end index of fragments in the stored HL7 message, whereinthe stored HL7 message comprises fragments organized by type in ahierarchical manner, and wherein the hierarchical manner indicates thatthe stored HL7 message comprises one or more segments, each segmentcomprising one or more fields, each field comprising one or morerepetitions, each repetition comprising one or more components, and eachcomponent comprising one or more subcomponents; and, modify the storedHL7 message according to at least one start index and a correspondingend index of the fragments in the stored HL7 message.

Yet another embodiment of the disclosure provides a non-transitorycomputer readable medium for processing HL7 messages, the non-transitorycomputer readable medium containing program instructions that causes acomputer to perform the method comprising: receiving, over an electronicdata network, an HL7 message and storing the HL7 message in a memory asa stored HL7 message; hierarchically creating one or more data structurerepresentations in the memory that store at least a start index and anend index of fragments in the stored HL7 message, wherein a start indexindicates the beginning of a fragment and an end index indicates the endof a fragment, wherein the stored HL7 message comprises fragmentsorganized by type in a hierarchical manner, and wherein the hierarchicalmanner indicates that an stored HL7 message comprises one or moresegments, each segment comprising one or more fields, each fieldcomprising one or more repetitions, each repetition comprising one ormore components, and each component comprising one or moresubcomponents; and, modify the stored HL7 message according to at leastone start index and a corresponding end index of the fragments in thestored HL7 message.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a sample HL7 message, in accordance with some embodiments ofthe disclosure;

FIG. 2 is an example of a schematic illustrating an overview of a systemfor the flow of HL7 communication, in accordance with some embodimentsof the disclosure;

FIG. 3 is an example flow diagram to identify HL7 message features, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 4 is an example showing results of applying an initial pass of theflow diagram in FIG. 3 to the sample HL7 message in FIG. 1, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 5 is an example showing results of creating field objects, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure; and

FIG. 6 is a block diagram illustrating an example computer environmentin which the process of identifying HL7 message features may beperformed.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Embodiments of the disclosure provide a method and system to process anHL7 message. Healthcare information is often communicated betweencomputer systems from different vendors using a loosely-definedindustry-standard format called HL7. HL7 defines the general structureand semantics of communication, but often leaves details of thecommunication to the discretion of different vendors. Mitigatingdiffering interpretations or applications of the standard often requiresreorganizing or adjusting the contents of HL7 messages received from onevendor before they are transmitted to another vendor. Therefore,efficient methods of manipulating HL7 messages (i.e., use oftransformations) on computing systems are valuable.

HL7 messages describe healthcare events in a hierarchical manner, with asingle message composed of multiple segments. Each segment is composedof multiple fields. Each field may have zero or more repetitions. Eachrepetition may have multiple components, and each component may havemultiple subcomponents.

Embodiments of the disclosure provide a method of using indices to markfragments of an HL7 message. When a software client is working with ormanipulating the HL7 message, the software client may change theoriginal message by modifying certain values in the fragments ofinterest and updating the indices of the fragments accordingly. Thismethod works directly with the original HL7 message and thus, avoidsmaking multiple copies of the HL7 message. By adopting certain aspectsof the disclosure, a software system may manipulate HL7 messages withoutconsuming too much RAM or necessitating the need for a computer to spenda long amount of time in “garbage collection,” thereby improving thefunctioning of the computer itself. “Garbage collection” is a memorymanagement process where a memory management program attempts to reclaimmemory occupied by objects that are no longer in use by a currentlyrunning program. In conventional approaches, unnecessary pressure isplaced on a computer runtime system, since HL7 message processing mayinvolve multiple copies of values within the hierarchy stored in memory.As such, computer resources would be diverted to garbage collectionwhere no-longer-used memory blocks are rearranged and cleaned up so thatthey become available for future productive work. During “garbagecollection” time, the throughput of an HL7 message processing system issignificantly reduced. In some instances, the throughput is measured interms of number of HL7 messages processed per second. Embodiments of thedisclosure provide an efficient system and method for HL7 messageprocessing, allowing throughput to remain high. Accordingly, embodimentsof the disclosure provide systems and method that improve thefunctioning of the computer itself by reducing and streamlining memoryusage.

FIG. 1 provides an example of an HL7 message, according to oneembodiment of the disclosure. The HL7 hierarchical message structurecontains multiple separators or delimiters. Segments are often separatedby carriage returns “

”, and fields are often separated by a pipe character “|” (note, thepipe character may also separate the segment ID from the first datafield in each segment). Repetitions are often separated by tildecharacter “˜”. Components are often separated by a hat character“{circumflex over ( )}”. Subcomponents are often separated by anampersand character “&”. Usually when there are no subcomponents, theampersand may be omitted. The delimiters used for each separation in thehierarchy may follow the sample convention provided or may follow adifferent convention using other symbols. Thus, in one embodiment, theobject hierarchy used to interpret HL7 messages is message, segment,field, repetition, component, and subcomponent.

For example, in FIG. 1, the message 100 is composed of multiple segmentswith segment labels or segment IDs MSH, PID, OBR, OBX, and OBX. Theselabels are known identifiers in HL7. In FIG. 1, underlines are used tohighlight several features, but the underlines are not part of themessage. The underlined item 102 provides an example of a complex fieldwith multiple components and subcomponents. The underlined item 104highlights a field with repetitions. The underlined item 106 highlightsa field with components. The underlined items 108 and 110 highlightcomponents with subcomponents. FIG. 1 is an example illustrating thesyntax and hierarchical structure of an HL7 message. The definingdelimiters and separators may be modified from one HL7 standard toanother, but as long as the hierarchical structure is preserved,embodiments of the disclosure may be applied to each HL7 message.

FIG. 2 is a schematic illustrating an overview of an example system 200for the flow of HL7 communication. The Healthcare Information Systems202-1 to 202-n represent different computing environments that mayreceive and send HL7 messages over an electronic data network, such asthe Internet. In the current embodiment, a HL7 Integration Engine 204receives HL7 messages from one or more of the Healthcare InformationSystems 202-1 to 202-n. For simplicity in description, the referencenumber 202 is used herein to refer to at least one of the HealthcareInformation Systems 202-1 to 202-n. The HL7 Integration Engine 204 maysend HL7 messages to the Rules/Processing Engine 206. In turn, theRules/Processing Engine 206 may send HL7 messages to the Delivery Engine208, which in turn may send HL7 messages to the Electronic MedicalRecord (EMR) System 210.

Health Information Systems 202 are each represented with a mainframecomputer symbol, and the HL7 Integration Engine 204, Rules/ProcessingEngine 206, Delivery Engine 208, and EMR 210 are represented with aserver symbol. Each of the mainframes and servers are computer deviceswith non-transitory computer readable media and one or more processors.In some implementations, these different computing systems may comprisemultiple computer devices networked to perform as a single unit, i.e., aserver symbol in FIG. 2 may represent multiple servers linked to realizea prescribed functionality. Is some embodiments, one or more of the HL7Integration Engine 204, the Rules/Processing Engine 206, and theDelivery Engine 208 may be embodied on a single computing device.

The example system 200 may also include devices not compatible with HL7,for example, a fax machine 214, a printer 216, etc. In some instances,the different computing devices are coupled to one or more databases. InFIG. 2, the Rules/Processing Engine 206 is connected to Database 212.The mainframes and servers represented in FIG. 2 may receive,manipulate, and send HL7 messages. Thus, embodiments of the disclosuremay be applied at any healthcare computing device in the architecturerepresentation of FIG. 2 for processing HL7 messages.

FIG. 3 provides an example flow diagram to identify HL7 messagefeatures, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. Theprocess 300 illustrated in the flow diagram of FIG. 3 relies on thehierarchical structure of an HL7 message. In some embodiments, when acomputing device receives an HL7 message through its network interface,the computing device stores the HL7 message in its working memory, e.g.,random access memory (RAM). The computing device then creates one ormore fragment objects for the received HL7 message.

A fragment object is a data structure stored in the working memory oranother storage medium, such as a solid-state hard drive or magnetichard drive. A fragment object may track several properties of thereceived HL7 message illustrated below as 1 to 6. A fragment object maytrack the entire HL7 message or a portion or part of the HL7 message,such as a segment, field, repetition, component, or subcomponent.

1. The fragment object may include a property called “rawHL7”, whichholds the HL7 message in a “String” format. In some embodiments of thedisclosure, the “rawHL7” property is a reference to a memory location inRAM where the HL7 message is stored.

2. The fragment object may include a property called “startIndex”, whichholds an index of the first character in “rawHL7” that representscontent for a specific HL7 fragment.

3. The fragment object may include a property called “endIndex”, whichholds an index just beyond the last character in “rawHL7” thatrepresents content for a specific HL7 fragment. In some embodiments, the“endIndex” may be engineered to hold an index of the last character forthe specific HL7 fragment.

4. The fragment object may include a property called “childFragments”,which are ordered list of HL7 fragments.

5. The fragment object may include a property called“hasChangedChildren”, which indicates whether a software client hasrequested a change to any value held in any of the HL7 fragments in the“childFragments” list.

6. The fragment object may include a property called “parentFragment”.Thus, when an HL7 fragment is added to another HL7 fragment's“childFragments” collection, the added fragment's “parentFragment” isset to reference the HL7 fragment to which it was added.

In addition to the previous properties, fragment objects that aresegments, i.e., segment objects, may have additional properties. Forexample, a segment may be a required segment in an HL7 message, and assuch, a Boolean property “RequiredSegment” may be defined in the segmentobject signifying whether this segment object is required. Additionally,a segment object may include a Boolean property called “ghostParent”which indicates whether the current segment is a “ghost parent”. The“ghostParent” is set to true if a child segment has a non-requiredparent segment missing in the original message. Lastly, the segmentobject may include a property called “Segments” which is an ordered listof child segments.

The process 300 illustrated in FIG. 3 is explained in reference to theexample provided in FIG. 4. FIG. 4 contains the sample HL7 message 100of FIG. 1. In FIG. 4, the index of some characters have been shown. Theentire message, when organized in memory, will have each characterassociated with an index. When an HL7 message is received, a fragmentobject called a message object is created. The entire message is viewedas a fragment and the message object populates the following properties:“rawHL7”, “startIndex”, and “endIndex”. “rawHL7” includes a reference tothe memory location containing the received HL7 message. “startIndex”includes the index of the beginning of the HL7 message, and in the caseof FIG. 4, the “startIndex” is “0”. “endIndex” includes the index of theend of the HL7 message, and in the case of FIG. 4, the “endIndex” is“605”.

In some embodiments, at this point, the “childFragments” property may beset to null. In other embodiments, the “childFragments” property ispopulated according to the process 300. Direct children of messages aresegments, so in order to populate the “childFragments” property of themessage object, process 300 is run to find the segments in the receivedHL7 message. Segments are then viewed as fragments in FIG. 3. By goingthrough process 300, new fragment objects are created, and in thisparticular case, segment objects are created.

After starting the process 300 at step 302, Step 304 involves settingcharacter index to the start index of the fragment reference beingfurther divided. In reference to the example of FIG. 4, since segmentsof the message are the fragments of interest, the character index is setto “0”, the index that signifies the start of the first segment. At Step306, a segment object with “startIndex” set to character index iscreated. In the example, Step 306 involves “startIndex” set to “0”.

At step 308, the process 300 involves checking to see whether thecharacter index points to a delimiter character for the fragment. In theexample, since segments are the fragments of interest, the delimiter forsegments is the carriage return character 4. In the message of FIG. 4,since character index “0” does not point to a carriage return character,process 300 will proceed to the Step 318, Step 320, and Step 308 loop.These three steps involve incrementing the character index until thecarriage return character is found. Step 318 checks to see if there aremore characters in the current fragment, and Step 320 increments thecharacter index. Once the carriage return character is found, Step 308evaluates to Step 310. At Step 310, the “endIndex” of the currentsegment fragment is set to character index.

At Step 314, the process 300 determines whether there are morecharacters in the block. If there are no more characters, the processends, but if there are more characters, then the process returns to Step306.

Step 322 is a failsafe mechanism in case the fragment being processed isat the end of a message but there is no delimiter at the end of thefragment. “endIndex”, as defined, holds an index value beyond the lastcharacter, so at Step 322, “endIndex” is set to “character index +1”.This is because character index points to a character that is not adelimiter but a character that is part of the HL7 fragment. There may beother definitions of “endIndex”, for example, “endIndex” may be definedin other implementations as the last character of the HL7 fragmentbefore the delimiter. Any such variation in the definition of “endIndex”is covered within the scope of the embodiments of the disclosure.

In FIG. 4, after running through process 300, the different segmentobjects of the sample HL7 message will be populated as provided. Thefive (5) segment objects correspond to the five (5) segments of thesample HL7 message. Each segment object has a “rawHL7” property whichincludes a reference to the HL7 message. The “startIndex” and “endIndex”properties of each segment object is populated with their respectiveindices. The “childFragments” property of each of the segment objects isset to null. At this stage, each segment has not been further parsedinto fields.

As an example, a Rules/Processing Engine 206 receives the sample HL7message of FIG. 4. The sample message is processed as described withrespect to FIG. 3 and FIG. 4. A software client stored in a memory andexecuted by a processor running on the Rules/Processing Engine 206requests patient identification information. The software clientrecognizes that patient identification information is stored in a PIDsegment and is usually located in the second or third field of the PIDsegment. The software then requests the value for the second or thirdfield of the PID, and in the case of FIG. 4, the second field of thesecond segment. Process 300 is then started for segment objectpertaining to the PID segment. FIG. 5 provides the segment object ofinterest (note, this is the second created segment object of FIG. 4).

At Step 304, the character index is set to the “startIndex” of thesegment object, which is index_50 in this example. At Step 306, a fieldobject is created with the “startIndex” at “54”. In this embodiment, thesegment ID, PID, is omitted and is not considered a field of interest.In other embodiments, the segment ID may be considered a field. Afterdetermining that “startIndex” is “54”, at Step 308, it is determinedthat the character index at “54” actually points to a field delimiter,the pipe character “|”. Step 310 then sets the “endIndex” to “54” aswell. Steps 312, 314, and 316 then follow, and a new field object iscreated since there are more characters in the segment fragment. (Note,the “endIndex” of the PID segment fragment is “208” while characterindex just incremented from “54” to “56”.) The new field object has a“startIndex” of “56”, and after going through the process 300, will havean “endIndex” of “207”. These two field objects are provided in FIG. 5.At this point, the software client has the value of the second field ofthe second segment. The information contained in the second field of thesecond segment is then used by the software client.

In certain embodiments, when a software client requests information, thesoftware client seeks to verify that the information is accurate orvalid. In some instances, after obtaining the information, the softwareclient may want to change the value stored in the second field of thesecond segment. For example, the software client may seek to change the“10535” value in the second field to “10335”. The “10535” value is thefirst component within the second field of the second segment. Process300 would need to be applied to the obtained second field of the secondsegment in order to obtain a component object with “startIndex” and“endIndex” for the “10535” value. Once this component object isextracted, the software may create in memory the value “10335” and havethe component object “startIndex” and “endIndex” point to the new valuein memory. In some embodiments of the disclosure, when a fragment objectchanges a value from what it had been in the original HL7 message, the“hasChangedChildren” property of the fragment is set to True. Bydefault, after receiving the message and creating segments, the“hasChangedChildren” property is False, and once a change is made to theHL7 message, then the “hasChangedChildren” property is set to “True”.Every parent of the changed fragment object will then have their“hasChangedChildren” property set to True.

In another example, after extracting the patient ID “10535” from thefirst component of the second field of the PID segment, theRules/Processing Engine 206 finds a record for that patient from theDatabase 212. In that record are additional patient IDs representing thesame patient in different contexts, one of which is to be included inthe modified HL7 message to be sent downstream. In some embodiments, thepatient ID returned from the database may already be structured as afully-formatted HL7 fragment string. For this example, suppose thestring is as follows: “900443{circumflex over ( )}Beethoven{circumflexover ( )}Ludwig”.

The software client in the Rules/Processing Engine 206 then creates anew string of data using the HL7 standard format, to represent the newidentifier. This Field object will have a “rawHL7” property thatreferences this newly-created HL7 format string, which is storedseparately from the original HL7 message. The Field object will have a“startIndex” of “0” to index the beginning of this new string, and an“endIndex” of “23”, just past the end of the new fully-formatted HL7field string. This new Field can then be added to the end of the PIDsegment's “childFragments” ordered collection to represent a newlycreated Field “3” for the PID segment. Thus, a field is created andappended to the PID segment. In this example, the original HL7 messageand the newly created field need not be in contiguous locations inmemory.

Alternatively, the software client on the Rules/Processing Engine 206may choose to completely replace the patient identity details, in whichcase it will simply replace the second or third Field object with thenewly-created Field object in the ordered collection of “childFragments”in the PID segment's Segment object. In this case, the Field object thatis no longer in the “childFragments” will eventually be “garbagecollected”, but with a much smaller amount of “garbage” than if it hadcontained an entire copy of the string data from the original HL7message. In either of these scenarios, the Segment object representingthe PID segment would have its “hasChangedChildren” property set to trueso that future rendering of the PID segment will use the new Fieldobject to emit its data.

In some embodiments, if the software client on the Rules/ProcessingEngine later needs to isolate one of the components of the new field,the same splitting logic will occur, and every child fragment of thatfield will have its “rawHL7” property reference the same“900443{circumflex over ( )}Beethoven{circumflex over ( )}Ludwig” stringalready in RAM.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a computingenvironment in which the process of identifying HL7 message features maybe performed. The computing environment may also house certainembodiments of the disclosure that minimize garbage collection in HL7manipulation. Those of ordinary skill in the art will understand thatthe meaning of the term “computer” or “computing” as used in theexamples is not limited to a personal computer but may also includeother microprocessor or micro-controller based systems. For example,embodiments of the disclosure may be implemented on mainframes, servers,internet appliances, microprocessor based or programmable consumerelectronics, multi-processor systems, tablet computers, etc.

The computing environment may include a computer 600, which includes aprocessor 602, memory 604, and a system bus to facilitate communicationbetween different units of computer 600. The memory 604 may include aread only memory (ROM) 606 and a random access memory (RAM) 608. In someembodiments, the ROM 606 stores basic input/output system (BIOS) 610,which contains basic routines that assist in information exchangebetween different units within the computer 600. The RAM 608 is workingmemory and may store a variety of items including parts of the operatingsystem 612, and programs and data necessary for correct operation ofthese programs 614. The computer 600 may include a storage device 616with a higher capacity than RAM 608. Storage device 616 may be multiplehard disk drives (HDDs), solid state drives (SSDs), magnetic diskdrives, hybrid drives, optical disk drive, etc. Computer 600 mayinterface removable drives or storage media 618 which may include flashdrives, optical media, etc. Storage Drive Interface 620 interfacesinternal and external storage options with the system bus. HL7 messages,stored in Storage device 616, may be read into RAM 608.

A user may enter commands and information into computer 600 through userinterface device 626. User interface device 626 includes a microphone, atouch screen, a touchpad, a keyboard, a mouse, a joystick, and a stylus.User Interface Port 624 interfaces the User Interface Device 626 withthe system bus. The port 624 may include a serial port, a parallel port,a universal serial bus (USB), a game port, a proprietary port, a 1394port, a microphone port, etc. Computer 600 may further include one ormore network interfaces 622 to provide network connectivity with one ormore devices. Network interface 622 may be a wired or wireless networkinterface, supporting several wireless technologies includingBluetooth®, Wi-Fi, ultra-wide band (UWB), wireless USB, ZigBee, WiMAX,long term evolution (LTE), etc. HL7 messages may be obtained at networkinterface 622 and subsequently stored in RAM 608 or storage device 616.Lastly, computer 600 may interface with input and output devices. InFIG. 6, audio adapter 628 and video adapter 630 provide connections to aspeaker 634 and display 632, respectively.

Embodiments of the disclosure provide a method of using indices to markfragments of an HL7 message. When a software client is working with theHL7 message, the software client may change the original message bymodifying certain values in the fragments of interest and updating theindices of the fragments accordingly. This method works directly withthe original HL7 message and thus, avoids making multiple copies of theHL7 message. By adopting certain aspects of the disclosure, a softwaresystem may manipulate HL7 messages without consuming too much RAM ornecessitating the need for a computer to spend a long amount of time in“garbage collection”. In conventional approaches, unnecessary pressureis placed on computer runtime system since HL7 message processing mayinvolve multiple copies of values within the hierarchy stored in memory.As such, computer resources would be diverted to garbage collectionwhere no-longer-used memory blocks are rearranged and cleaned up so thatthey become available for future productive work. During “garbagecollection” time, the throughput of an HL7 message processing system issignificantly reduced. In some instances, the throughput is measured interms of number of HL7 messages processed per second. Embodiments of thedisclosure provide an efficient means of HL7 message processing,allowing throughput to remain high. Accordingly, embodiments of thedisclosure provide systems and method that improve the functioning ofthe computer itself by reducing and streamlining memory usage.

Embodiments of the disclosure allow preserving the original relativepositions within the original message of a field, repetition, component,or subcomponent when its value is copied or moved from one location inthe inbound HL7 message to a different position in the outbound HL7message, rather than creating another copy of the data contained withinthat field, repetition, component, or subcomponent.

Embodiments of the disclosure allow accepting modifications of datavalues in the HL7 message, assigning a new value to an element at anylayer of the hierarchy, holding a single copy of the entire new value,and interpreting the values of individual data elements within thathierarchy in terms of their relative positions within that single copyof the new value. Thus, avoiding copying the values of those dataelements into the hierarchical object model, and avoiding making anymodifications to the area of RAM containing the original message.

Furthermore, the disclosure provides additional embodiments onmanipulation of HL7 messages, particularly moving/copying values,populating new values, and tracking changes that have been made to anHL7 message. In one example, the software client on the Rules/ProcessingEngine 206 may move or copy a value from one segment to another segment,or from one part of the HL7 message hierarchy to another. With a move orcopy, a source fragment is identified, and a destination parent is alsoidentified. A new HL7 fragment object of the appropriate type is createdto represent the destination field, repetition, component, orsubcomponent. Since the original value for this new destination is beingcopied or moved from somewhere else in the original message, the new HL7fragment object's “rawHL7” value continues to reference the original HL7message, and the new HL7 fragment object's “startIndex” and “endIndex”represent the starting and ending locations, respectively, for theportion of that HL7 message that holds the desired value for thedestination HL7 fragment.

In another example, the software client on the Rules/Processing Engine206 may populate a fragment of an HL7 message with a value provided byan external source. A new HL7 fragment object is created to represent adestination field, repetition, component, or subcomponent. The “rawHL7”value of the new fragment object is set to reference a new valueprovided by the external source, and the “startIndex” and “endIndex” areset to reference the beginning and end of the new value. If the newlycreated HL7 fragment is later parsed to populate its child fragmentscollection, the newly created child fragments will have their “rawHL7”values set to reference the same external value as is referenced bytheir parent HL7 fragment object, and their startIndex and endIndexvalues will be set relative to the block of memory holding that externalvalue.

In yet another example, embodiments of the disclosure when incorporatedin a computing device, for example, on the Rules/Processing Engine 206,may track changes made to an HL7 message by monitoring values of“hasChangedChildren” properties of HL7 fragment objects. Whenever amember of an HL7 fragment object's childFragments is changed, the“hasChangedChildren” property of the parent HL7 fragment is set to“true”, and the “true” value cascades all the way up the hierarchy fromthat parent to its parent until it reaches an HL7 fragment whose parentis null, i.e., the HL7 message object.

Compared to conventional approaches for parsing HL7 messages,embodiments of the disclosure consistently perform better. After testingseveral different characteristics of real-world HL7 messages in multiplebatch sizes, performance improvements ranged from a 5% improvement to a75% improvement. The average improvement in the number of messagesprocessed per second was approximately 20%. These quoted improvementsare realized without making any performance improvements to thedomain-specific I/O, analysis, and/or processing that the externalsoftware client does in-between requests to the HL7 library used for themessage parsing.

All references, including publications, patent applications, andpatents, cited herein are hereby incorporated by reference to the sameextent as if each reference were individually and specifically indicatedto be incorporated by reference and were set forth in its entiretyherein.

The use of the terms “a” and “an” and “the” and “at least one” andsimilar referents in the context of describing the invention (especiallyin the context of the following claims) are to be construed to coverboth the singular and the plural, unless otherwise indicated herein orclearly contradicted by context. The use of the term “at least one”followed by a list of one or more items (for example, “at least one of Aand B”) is to be construed to mean one item selected from the listeditems (A or B) or any combination of two or more of the listed items (Aand B), unless otherwise indicated herein or clearly contradicted bycontext. The terms “comprising,” “having,” “including,” and “containing”are to be construed as open-ended terms (i.e., meaning “including, butnot limited to,”) unless otherwise noted. Recitation of ranges of valuesherein are merely intended to serve as a shorthand method of referringindividually to each separate value falling within the range, unlessotherwise indicated herein, and each separate value is incorporated intothe specification as if it were individually recited herein. All methodsdescribed herein can be performed in any suitable order unless otherwiseindicated herein or otherwise clearly contradicted by context. The useof any and all examples, or exemplary language (e.g., “such as”)provided herein, is intended merely to better illuminate the inventionand does not pose a limitation on the scope of the invention unlessotherwise claimed. No language in the specification should be construedas indicating any non-claimed element as essential to the practice ofthe invention.

Preferred embodiments of this invention are described herein, includingthe best mode known to the inventors for carrying out the invention.Variations of those preferred embodiments may become apparent to thoseof ordinary skill in the art upon reading the foregoing description. Theinventors expect skilled artisans to employ such variations asappropriate, and the inventors intend for the invention to be practicedotherwise than as specifically described herein. Accordingly, thisinvention includes all modifications and equivalents of the subjectmatter recited in the claims appended hereto as permitted by applicablelaw. Moreover, any combination of the above-described elements in allpossible variations thereof is encompassed by the invention unlessotherwise indicated herein or otherwise clearly contradicted by context.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for processing Health Level-7 (HL7)messages, comprising: receiving, over an electronic data network, an HL7message and storing the HL7 message in a memory as a stored HL7 message;creating a data structure representation of the stored HL7 message inthe memory that stores a start index of the stored HL7 message and anend index of the stored HL7 message, wherein the start index of thestored HL7 message indicates a beginning of the stored HL7 message andthe end index of the stored HL7 message indicates an end of the storedHL7 message; hierarchically creating, in the memory, from the datastructure representation of the stored HL7 message, a first datastructure representation of a fragment in the stored HL7 message, thefirst data structure representation of the fragment including a startindex and an end index corresponding to the fragment in the stored HL7message; and modifying the stored HL7 message by appending a second datastructure representation of the fragment to a child list associated witha parent of the fragment, wherein the second data structurerepresentation of the fragment includes a start index and an end indexof a storage location storing an updated value of the fragment.
 2. Themethod according to claim 1, wherein: the stored HL7 message isorganized in a hierarchical manner, the stored HL7 message comprisingsegments, the segments comprising fields, the fields comprisingrepetitions, the repetitions comprising components, and the componentscomprising subcomponents; and types of fragments in the stored HL7message are selected from a group consisting of: (a) a message fragment(b) a segment fragment, (c) a field fragment, (d) a repetition fragment,(e) a component fragment, and (f) a subcomponent fragment.
 3. The methodaccording to claim 2, wherein: the stored HL7 message comprisesdelimiters for each fragment, wherein a different delimiter is used foreach type of fragment in the stored HL7 message.
 4. The method accordingto claim 2, wherein: the end index of the fragment in the stored HL7message is an index of the stored HL7 message containing a delimiter. 5.The method according to claim 2, wherein: the first data structurerepresentation created hierarchically further stores informationselected from a group consisting of: (a) information on a hierarchicalrelationship between the fragment and another fragment indicating aparent relationship, a child relationship, or both, and (b) informationon whether a value related to a child fragment has changed.
 6. Themethod according to claim 5, wherein: the first data structurerepresentation created hierarchically further stores informationselected from a group consisting of: (a) information indicating whethera segment is a required segment, (b) information indicating whether thesegment is a ghost parent, the ghost parent signifying that the segmentwas created for a child segment without a parent, and (c) informationindicating a list of child segments.
 7. The method according to claim 1,wherein modifying the stored HL7 message comprises one or more of:extracting information from the stored HL7 message between the startindex and the end index of the fragment in the stored HL7 message;moving a value from one part of the stored HL7 message to another, thevalue located between the start index and the end index of the fragmentin the stored HL7 message; copying a value from one part of the storedHL7 message to another, the value located between the start index andthe end index of the fragment in the stored HL7 message; populating anew value in the stored HL7 message to replace a value located betweenthe start index and the end index of the fragment in the stored HL7message; and tracking changes that have been made to the stored HL7message between the start index and the end index of the fragment in thestored HL7 message.
 8. The method according to claim 1, whereinmodifying the stored HL7 message results in an HL7 message withfragments stored in non-contiguous locations in the memory.
 9. Acomputing device for processing Health Level-7 (HL7) messages, thecomputing device comprising a processor and a memory with instructionsstored thereon, such that when the processor executes the instructions,the computing device is configured to: receive, over an electronic datanetwork, an HL7 message and store the HL7 message in the memory as astored HL7 message; hierarchically create, in the memory, a first datastructure representation of a fragment in the stored HL7 message, thefirst data structure representation of the fragment including a startindex and an end index of the fragment in the stored HL7 message,wherein the stored HL7 message comprises fragments organized by type ina hierarchical manner, and wherein the hierarchical manner indicatesthat the stored HL7 message comprises one or more segments, each segmentcomprising one or more fields, each field comprising one or morerepetitions, each repetition comprising one or more components, and eachcomponent comprising one or more subcomponents; and modify the storedHL7 message by appending a second data structure representation of thefragment to a child list associated with a parent of the fragment,wherein the second data structure representation of the fragmentincludes a start index and an end index of a storage location storing anupdated value of the fragment.
 10. The computing device according toclaim 9, wherein: the stored HL7 message comprises delimiters for eachfragment, wherein a different delimiter is used for each type offragment in the stored HL7 message.
 11. The computing device accordingto claim 10, wherein: the end index of the fragment in the stored HL7message is an index of the stored HL7 message containing a delimiter.12. The computing device according to claim 9, wherein: the first datastructure representation created hierarchically further storesinformation selected from a group consisting of: (a) information on ahierarchical relationship between the fragment and another fragmentindicating a parent relationship, (b) information on a hierarchicalrelationship between the fragment and another fragment indicating achild relationship, and (c) information on whether a value related to achild fragment has changed.
 13. The computing device according to claim12, wherein: the first data structure representation createdhierarchically further stores information selected from a groupconsisting of: (a) information indicating whether a segment is arequired segment, (b) information indicating whether the segment is aghost parent, the ghost parent signifying that the segment was createdfor a child segment without a parent, and (c) information indicating alist of child segments.
 14. The computing device according to claim 9,wherein modifying the stored HL7 message comprises one or more of:extracting information from the stored HL7 message between the startindex and the end index of the fragment in the stored HL7 message;moving a value from one part of the stored HL7 message to another, thevalue located between the start index and the end index of the fragmentin the stored HL7 message; copying a value from one part of the storedHL7 message to another, the value located between the start index andthe end index of the fragment in the stored HL7 message; populating anew value in the stored HL7 message to replace a value located betweenthe start index and the end index of the fragment in the stored HL7message; and tracking changes that have been made to the stored HL7message between the start index and the end index of the fragment in thestored HL7 message.
 15. A non-transitory computer readable medium forprocessing Health Level-7 (HL7) messages, the non-transitory computerreadable medium containing program instructions that causes a computerto perform a method comprising: receiving, over an electronic datanetwork, an HL7 message and storing the HL7 message in a memory as astored HL7 message; hierarchically creating, in the memory, a first datastructure representation of a fragment in the stored HL7 message, thefirst data structure representation of the fragment including a startindex and an end index of the fragment in the stored HL7 message,wherein the start index indicates a beginning of the fragment and theend index indicates an end of the fragment, wherein the stored HL7message comprises fragments organized by type in a hierarchical manner,and wherein the hierarchical manner indicates that the stored HL7message comprises one or more segments, each segment comprising one ormore fields, each field comprising one or more repetitions, eachrepetition comprising one or more components, and each componentcomprising one or more subcomponents; and modifying the stored HL7message by appending a second data structure representation of thefragment to a child list associated with a parent of the fragment,wherein the second data structure representation of the fragmentincludes a start index and an end index of a storage location storing anupdated value of the fragment.
 16. The non-transitory computer readablemedium according to claim 15, wherein: the stored HL7 message comprisesdelimiters for each fragment, wherein a different delimiter is used foreach type of fragment in the stored HL7 message.
 17. The non-transitorycomputer readable medium according to claim 16, wherein: the end indexis an index of the stored HL7 message containing a delimiter.
 18. Thenon-transitory computer readable medium according to claim 15, wherein:the first data structure representation created hierarchically furtherstores information selected from a group consisting of: (a) informationon a hierarchical relationship between the fragment and another fragmentindicating a parent relationship, (b) information on a hierarchicalrelationship between the fragment and another fragment indicating achild relationship, and (c) information on whether a value related to achild fragment has changed.
 19. The non-transitory computer readablemedium according to claim 18, wherein: the first data structurerepresentation created hierarchically further stores informationselected from a group consisting of: (a) information indicating whethera segment is a required segment, (b) information indicating whether thesegment is a ghost parent, the ghost parent signifying that the segmentwas created for a child segment without a parent, and (c) informationindicating a list of child segments.
 20. The non-transitory computerreadable medium according to claim 15, wherein modifying the stored HL7message comprises one or more of: extracting information from the storedHL7 message between the start index and the end index of the fragment inthe stored HL7 message; moving a value from one part of the stored HL7message to another, the value located between the start index and theend index of the fragment in the stored HL7 message; copying a valuefrom one part of the stored HL7 message to another, the value locatedbetween the start index and the end index of the fragment in the storedHL7 message; populating a new value in the stored HL7 message to replacea value located between the start index and the end index of thefragment in the stored HL7 message; and tracking changes that have beenmade to the stored HL7 message between the start index and the end indexof the fragment in the stored HL7 message.